


A Heart as Cold as Iron

by kaneki_vampire



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, BoyxBoy, Fluff, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Jotun Loki, M/M, Pain, Rape, Recovery, Revenge, Romance, Sexual Abuse, Smut, Torture, Trauma, care, not cannon compliant, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:38:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaneki_vampire/pseuds/kaneki_vampire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Thor bursts into Stark tower in desperate need of help Tony Stark is unwittingly forced into caring for a horrifically brutalized Loki, changed beyond recognition. With help from the avengers can Tony save the broken god and maybe even help himself?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Loki

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning

It was dark, so unbearably dark… I could hear the dripping of blood on the floor beneath me but I couldn’t feel anything. The pain was the only thing I could remember, the only thing I could feel. Reminding me every moment that I was still alive, still holding on. That in itself was torture… I wanted everything to be over. I was sorry but they wouldn’t listen… I wasn’t me for so long but nobody noticed and now… 

Now I’m alone.

I can sometimes hear them talking about me but I don’t know what they are saying. I don’t even know if its tears or blood running down my face. My magic, my safety is gone… every time I tried to save myself or stop the pain everything got worse. Right now being stabbed a thousand times seems normal, everything would be better than this heat. It’s everywhere I’m dying. But they won’t let me die, I wish they would make a mistake and let me die but the best torturers in Asgard don’t make mistakes.

Then I hear his voice, he is not talking to me, nobody talks to me, I can’t talk to them. So long ago it is barely a memory in light of this pain they took away my voice. The only person who ever stood up for me was me and now even I am gone, I can’t do anything, chained to this wall for so long I don’t remember what it’s like to stand up or lie down, forever held up by arms I can barely feel. 

A blinding light erupts from somewhere behind my eyes, I can’t see anything either. They had slammed me back against the wall. I vague thrill of fear snapped through me, swiftly followed by acceptance and then the pain. I can’t remember a time where there was anything but the pain. Screams ripping through my shredded mouth I felt them grab my head roughly. Then they spoke.

“You sure boss…” the uncertainty in his voice made me unusually nervous. There was nothing they hadn’t done… had they found something new? The fear returned full force. 

“It’s a monster anyway” I shuddered at that word but it was the truth. I could feel myself slipping and I welcomed the darkness. Then agony, like nothing I had ever felt before. They had grabbed my head, and then there was a pulling sensation before something snapped and white hot spears of pain rocketed through my head all the way to the feet that I could suddenly feel. The waves of agony shot through me for an immeasurable time. 

Sometime later the sound of the door scraping open on the hard floor penetrated the pain. I recoiled as best I could feeling everything scream in pain. I heard a pathetic whimper through the fog. Somewhere in my mind I registered that this was me. I heard the footsteps and found myself begging for death for anything. I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore…

“Brother?”

Everything went dark.


	2. Chapter 1 - Tony

“I didn’t know, I was drunk!”

“You are always drunk!!”

Pepper yelled at me for the third time today. The first time it was because I was not listening, the second because I accidently sold part of the company while on the toilet and the third… well… he was pretty! I may or may have not accidentally slept with our resident shield throwing blonde. His muscles though…

“Are you even listening to me!” wait what?

“Sorry?” Did I miss something?

“I’m leaving Tony! I can’t do this anymore. Did you ever care? Why didn’t you tell me you were gay? Was I a game? Something to be played with and thrown away? Did you ever care?” the questions came so fast I barely caught half of it. Women. 

“I’m not really gay… just whatever takes my fancy really…” but his muscles… Maybe Thor… NO bad Tony. Who knew Captain had American flag boxers? Shouldn’t really be surprised to be honest.

“I give up! I’m leaving! Does your genius billionaire playboy mind get that?” 

“You forgot philanthropist” she shrieked something intelligible 

“I don’t believe you! I’m taking the jet tonight!” maybe… if she is gone… Captain will be up for round 2. She left in tears. Maybe I should go and comfort her… or maybe the whisky will help. 

“Jarvis”

The disembodied voice echoed through the penthouse “Yes sir?”

“Whisky please… I need to get drunk…” an afterthought, “is Cap still here?”

“Your drink is on its way sir. Mr Rogers left about an hour ago. He told me to tell you he was sorry but he was drunk, and very straight” there goes my evening. I collapsed into the comfy chair thing that Pepper bought to ‘brighten up the man cave’. It was pink… but meh it’s comfy. 

I sat there and watched the sun go down, bemoaning the loss of a great CEO and sipping what must have been my 5th whisky, or maybe it was my 6th? I lost count. I was nearly asleep when I heard a massive crash somewhere below me. I tore my miserable eyes away from the New York skyline. What the fuck was disturbing my moping? 

“Jarvis, what the fuck was that?” the bloody machine did not answer me. Of course not moron, you programmed him to not respond while you are drunk useless it’s an emergency. Last time you sold the Mexican business. 

I dragged myself off the comfy couch thing, shook my head, started to go over to the lift and promptly sat back down again, the world spinning around me. Fuck.  
I tried again, brought the world back into focus and staggered towards my private lift. Growling in frustration I leaned on the doors as I waited for it to come. In my inebriated state I failed to notice the doors opening and I promptly fell into the waiting lift. Groaning I pulled myself into a sitting position and fumbled along the wall, hitting the button to take me to the lobby. The elevator music drove me into an even worse mood as I waited, making a mental note to change it next time I was sober… whenever that was going to be.

When the lift doors opened and I staggered out, the sight of what was in my lobby made me sober very quickly. Thor stood in the middle of the room, out of breath and covered in blood, the window behind him was completely smashed. His way in I guessed. 

“Why didn’t you use the door?” okay, maybe I was not entirely sober yet.

“Stark, I need to speak with you about an urgent matter” he started to walk towards me. Then stopped. “Are you well?”, so he had noticed the swaying. 

“I’m fine, what did you want to ask?” 

“I need to be certain you will not tell anybody” this sounded suspicious.

“I won’t say anything.” I just wanted to see what was so urgent, plus I’d be lucky if I actually remembered any of tonight when I woke up.

“You are drunk” he sounded disappointed and very annoyed, “Jarvis!”

“How may I help you Mr Odinson”, what a traitor. I scowled at the wall, stupid sober Tony.

“Can I have the solution Mr Stark designed to eliminate hangovers and restore people to being sober please.” Knowing what was coming I started to protest, I was quite happy being drunk thank you very much. One look from Thor silenced all protest, he looked desperate and scared. Both were looks I had never seen from Thor. This was serious.   
I drank the hangover cure quickly and motioned for Thor to come upstairs where we could talk in more comfort. He waved me off and I could feel myself sobering up. With the absence of alcohol came the worry. What was so bad it could make a god scared?

“Can you promise me nobody else will hear of this” he asked again, very intently, maybe he guessed I wasn’t really serious last time. 

“It depends what it is I’m going to hear. I can promise that I will not get anyone involved except those that may help.” He was making me nervous. I am Tony Stark, I don’t get nervous, but I couldn’t promise that. 

“I don’t really have a choice, and we are running out of time” Thor mumbled to himself and from what I overheard he was not so happy with my vague confidentiality promise.

“Someone is dying and I can’t save them, I need your help. I need a place for them to recover and hide without my father finding them and you were the only person I could think of who might be able to help.”

“Who is dying” Thor didn’t answer my question, instead he turned around and left through the hole he had made in the glass. When he returned he was carrying somebody in his arms, and moving very slowly, as if whoever it was would break very easily. He motioned with his head for me to follow him as he got into the lift. Full of curiosity I followed him in but was frustrated when he kept his back to me, not allowing me to look at the person I was to be helping. 

He got out of the lift before me and headed straight to the room that he used when he was here on avengers business. I was abruptly brought to a halt as he shut the door in my face, only to emerge a second later without the body. 

“Please don’t overreact” he was pleading with me, Thor Odinson was pleading. I nodded my assent and went into the room. The lights were off and as I fumbled for the light switch I heard a faint moan. The room flooded with light and the figure on the bed flinched as if struck. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was Loki. 

Walking over to the bed I found myself feeling more and more sick with horror. Loki, or what was left of Loki, was a complete mess. He was an ugly red colour which it took me a few seconds to realise was actually his blood. The bedsheet was slowly turning red as more and more blood poured from the body of the unconscious god. I had never seen anyone so mangled. He was covered in open wounds, some of which were infected. His hair was matted with blood and on the top of his head were two horns, which gracefully curved back on his head. Well there were supposed to be two horns, one was broken off almost at the base and was bleeding profusely, the other was broken nearer the top.   
When my eyes alighted on his face I nearly fell over with shock. Loki’s eyes were obscured by a thick metal contraption which looked almost welded onto his face… and his mouth… somebody had sewn his lips together. The wounds were bleeding and looked old and new at the same time, they had clearly be reopened frequently. Looking at the rest of his body I saw that he had manacles on his wrists and feet which were embedded into his skin, surrounded by raw tissue. As I looked at more of the damage, Thor standing silently by my side, I began to see red. Not the red that Loki was obscured by, but anger so intense that I nearly screamed. Who could do that to someone! It had been 5 years since we had last heard about him… 5 years in which he was tortured horrifically. 

As if from some distance away, I heard my voice…

“Call the avengers, we need help”


	3. Chapter 2 - Loki

I was falling again, wreathed in misery, wearing it like a death shroud, I could see the bright light of the Bifrost fading to nothing above me. I fell endlessly, with no indication of anything below me I felt oddly cheated, I had wanted to die. Why couldn’t I even kill myself properly? I let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob, it was quickly absorbed by the surrounding nothingness. 

Suddenly I felt a wrenching on my body and I was falling faster than before, and in a different direction. I had only a few moments to consider this development before I slammed into the ground of some foreign world at such a speed that I still don’t understand how I am alive. I was yanked out of my impact crater, pulled to the surface where I was met by a whole army. In enormous pain and still wanting to die I stood there, waiting for them to attack me so I could end it all, I wouldn’t even fight back. 

They parted almost seamlessly as a figure, larger than any I had yet seen rode towards me on what I can only describe as a nightmare. The purple man, if I can call him that, stopped his horrifying steed right in front of me and looked at me in the way that I thought only Odin could, reducing me to nothing. 

“Hello Trickster, I have been waiting for you”

I jerked back into consciousness, the ice cold fear spiking through my veins completely at odds with the warm blood running over my body and the terrible heat. Which wasn’t actually there. I leaned back to find the wall I had been chained too and felt softness, I recoiled instantly, was this some new trick? Some new way to degrade my already worthless state? 

“No more, please no more, please, I’ll be good, I’ll do anything, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, please….” It took me a while to realise I was almost speaking the words aloud, mumbling them with all the strength I had, forcing them through my broken lips. I could feel the stitches tugging the wounds open and blood flowed into my mouth, momentarily making me choke. I could still not see anything and for a moment I panicked before resigning myself to more pain, idly wondering what horror they could think up for me now. At some point I moved and through the screaming agony of my arms I realized I was no longer chained by my arms to the wall above me. This change in routine worried me and I couldn’t understand what the purpose of my temporarily allowed movement was.

I leaned back again, cautiously resting what was left of me against the strange softness. It reminded me vaguely of my chambers in the palace when I was young but I quickly quashed the thought, no softness in this place is for comfort. However as soon as I lay back I could feel myself drifting into unconsciousness. I registered no new pain so I gave in to the lure of the darkness and passed out.


	4. Chapter 3 - Tony

After a brief discussion with Thor about calling in the other avengers (he was against it) JARVIS called them and they were on their way. They didn’t know why they were coming but they had been assured it was urgent. 

Thor sat on the sofa in the penthouse, staring out at the New York skyline with his head in his hands. I sat down next to him and handed him a glass of whisky while I nursed my own. I was shaking from the shock of seeing Loki. I have never seen anyone look so dead and still be alive. I couldn’t help but see his current condition as my fault. We had sent him back to Asgard, fully aware that there would be some heinous punishment awaiting him. Though I do not think anyone was expecting this. I had instructed JARVIS to watch Loki and report if he did anything. Not that I expected him too, I don’t know if he was even capable of movement in his current state. 

The others arrived quietly. Natasha and Clint turned up together, Natasha looked grim but sympathetic after she had seen Loki and quickly agreed to help in any way she could. Clint exploded when I told him of the situation, out of everyone I knew he would hate Loki the most. After seeing the state he was in however, Clint relaxed somewhat and mumbled something like ‘poor bastard’ before agreeing to keep it a secret. It wasn’t exactly the declaration of help I had been hoping for but it was better that I thought I would receive. Steve seemed embarrassed at being back in the tower after last night but he quickly got over it after understanding the situation. We did not let Banner see Loki but we told him what had happened and offered no help or promise of silence until he heard the full story. Finally we were all settled and awaiting Thor’s explanation.

“Loki didn’t deserve this,” Thor had finally spoken from behind his hands, “what he did was wrong but nobody deserves this” he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. 

“What happened to him?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but morbid curiosity and a desire to understand how such a proud creature could become so utterly destroyed.

“He was tortured” I had surmised as much but I waited for Thor to continue, “After I returned to Asgard 5 years ago with Loki in chains I didn’t see him again. I wasn’t allowed to. I was told explicitly by my father that he was beyond help and was being imprisoned for the rest of his days. I was disappointed, but like the ignorant fool I was I believed him, God knows Loki can be difficult.” He took a deep breath, almost chocking on a sob.

“I was my father’s emissary for the years that followed, always away in another realm on matters of state, or fighting to keep the peace. Whenever I was at home there were massive parties to celebrate our achievements in battle or diplomacy. I rarely saw my father but to report on the success of a mission or to receive new orders and after that first time we never spoke of Loki. I now realise he did this to keep me busy so I wouldn’t think of him.

“I didn’t forget Loki, how could I? He is my brother. We have fought together so many times, I could rely on him to always have my back, to always have a plan. Suddenly he wasn’t there anymore and I had to do it all myself. I found myself constantly thinking ‘What would Loki do?’ and either doing the opposite or exactly that. I never realised how much I took his skills for granted and ignored him when he was speaking the truths that I did not want to hear. I was reckless in my youth, and many good men have died because of it.” The Asgardians were renowned for their story telling abilities, I had never truly understood how someone could be that good at story telling as to make the story come alive until I listened to Thor. His agony and regret of the past came through with every word, as did every emotion of the story. I found myself fascinated by the tale although aware it would take a morbid turn very soon. The others seemed equally spellbound.

“Loki was basically ignored by everyone back then, he was not a traditional Warrior, although I can definitely say he was one of the best fighters Asgard has ever seen, able to hold his own with the best and have a very good chance of winning. Nobody saw him as such though, he was seen as unnatural and strange, using magic and knives to fight instead of swords and axes. Magic was, and still is, seen as a woman’s art, to be used only for the creation of fine things and housekeeping. It is also used in the manufacture of weapons and tools and those that have the skill to create such things are regarded very highly. Not Loki however. He was, and I assume still is, the greatest Sorcerer the nine realms have ever seen, skilled in all forms of Magic both dark and light. I’m fairly sure he even invented half the spells he uses” he let out a broken laugh.

“Because of his skill and difference he was shunned and feared widely. He was never evil, just mischievous as befitting his reputation. Loki grew into the man that everyone expected him to always have been. He became his rumoured reputation. If someone is told something for long enough and from the right people they tend to believe it. He started to cut himself off, to immerse himself fully into magic so dark that nobody knew it existed, magic so powerful we were astounded that he was capable of wielding it. Loki has the power, should he choose to use it, to destroy this city with a sweep of his hand. He would need no army.”

“Really not endearing him to us…” Clint looked very wary at this statement, his hand creeping towards his omnipresent bow and arrow. Natasha, Steve and I looked at each other, the same question in all of our minds. Natasha voiced it.

“If he is so powerful, why did he not destroy New York in the first place, why did he not use magic at all when he was fighting us?” Thor paused as if contemplating what to say, one look at the rest of us and he sighed, resigned to telling the whole story.

“I don’t know if any of you remember the first time I came to Midgard, exiled by my father for being far too reckless and starting a war through my own stupidity. The day I was supposed to be crowned King of Asgard half way through the ceremony, Frost Giants broke into the vault containing the greatest and most powerful treasures of Asgard. They were killed by the defences surrounding the room and no harm was done. My father said that these actions were not representative of the Jotun people but they were merely the actions of a few. I however was furious, our mortal enemies had just attacked us and we were not going to do anything about it? I led my friends and Loki on a mission to Jotunheim, home of the frost giants, in an attempt to understand what had happened. It ended in a blood bath and the centuries of peace being broken, for this action I was banished to Earth.” Everyone looked horrified, Thor had not been exaggerating when he had said he was reckless. I heard Natasha scoff ‘Gods’ and I couldn’t help but agree with her, this was sounding like a liturgy of mistakes. Thor continued regardless.

“Frost giants live on a planet of ice and if they touch you, you burn badly. Unbeknownst to me Loki had been grabbed by a Frost Giant while fighting. Yet instead of burning he turned the same shade of blue as them. After my banishment, Odin revealed to Loki that he was adopted, the son of Laufey the King of the Frost Giants. Odin then fell into the Odinsleep – a sort of coma which he must go into in order to rest every few years – leaving Loki to rule in his stead since I was absent. In all fairness, as we were back then, Loki would have made a far superior king. In an effort to prove to Odin that he was a good king, better at least than I, despite his heritage, he plotted to destroy Jotunheim. I arrived back from my exile in time to see him murder Laufey and attempt to destroy the entirety of Jotunheim – something Odin had once tried and failed to do. I destroyed the Bifrost to prevent the total destruction of the planet, however the resultant explosion sent both me and Loki off the edge into space. Odin caught both of us just before we would have plunged into the abyss and been killed. Loki was so desperate for some acknowledgement, something he had been deprived of all his life, Odin refused him this acceptance when he needed it most. Loki let go, he fell. We all thought him dead by his own volition” Thor looked so lost, so broken in that moment that I finally understood his reaction in New York, his constant appealing to Loki to come home.

“But he didn’t die” Banner had stated the obvious, despite his previous attitude I could now see that, like the rest of us, he wanted to know what had happened.

“No. He didn’t” Thor was gathering himself to tell the remainder of the story. “Loki resurfaced in New York 5 years ago, 2 years after we thought he had died. Even Heimdal who sees all thought him dead. I do not know why he did not use his magic when he attacked New York, had he done so, we would have been very hard pressed to beat him. I believe that he was bound, he was restricted in the magic he could use because of something that was beyond his control. I do not believe that it was my brother that attacked this city, rather something controlling him. I have no clue who or what this could have been but it was not Loki that attacked New York. It was Loki however, that I took back to Asgard. At some point during the battle he regained control.” Coming to think about it, Reindeer Games definitely seemed different when he started the attack – more purposeful. When he left he just seemed defeated, not even sad that he had lost, he just looked broken, like a shell. 

“Are Loki’s eyes blue?” everyone’s head turned to Steve, what kind of a question was that? Thor was slow to answer.

“No, Loki is renowned for having bright green eyes, you could never mistake them for blue” Thor looked confused.

“Well when he attacked NYC he had blue eyes” Steve stated it so matter of factly that I was puzzled for a moment. Thor also looked confused.

“I don’t know what that is about unfortunately, but it is a piece to a puzzle that I do not know the size of…” Everyone was confused.

“We can come back to that. What is Loki doing here?” As expected Banner had cut to the chase. The story was fantastic and it sounded like we were going to need the information it contained, but we needed to find out why Loki was here first. Thor sighed, he looked awful and was still covered in copious amounts of what was defiantly Loki’s blood. It was staining the comfy pink chair but that was not currently important.

“I returned from one of my missions to another realm yesterday and reported to my father that morning. It was a particularly difficult mission to follow orders on, but it had to be done. However I had not followed orders correctly so I was assigned to question a prisoner as a punishment. To Odin, questioning is torture, it gains results. He knows I hate it so he uses it as a punishment for both me and the one I question. However what he doesn’t know cannot hurt him and I never touch anyone I am supposed to interrogate. Kindness I have found is actually a better motivator than pain.” At this Natasha and Clint nodded.

“I went to the dungeons with a blanket and basic clothes and food to give to the prisoner in exchange for information. I was instructed to question a prisoner in a part of the dungeons I never knew existed. In the depths of the castle the high profile or incredibly strong prisoners were kept in custom made cells. In one of these was Loki. My father wanted me to torture him. I spoke to the guards and found that Odin himself tortures Loki regularly for ‘stress relief’ and that they were all handpicked for their hatred of my brother. Once I had seen Loki’s condition, even the great prison guards of Asgard cannot keep a God alive during torture forever, I killed them and fled Asgard, coming to the only place I could think of to find both help and allies.” He looked up, meeting everyone’s eyes in turn.

“Now you know. Will you help me save my brother?” 

Everyone agreed. We all startled as the voice of JARVIS came through the speakers.

“Sir, I believe Loki has just awoken”

We all ran from the room.


	5. Chapter 4 - Tony

When we reached the door to my spare room I stopped and everyone crowded behind me. Thor looked incredibly worried. I realized that he had probably not seen his brother conscious since he took him from that hellhole. Bruce’s face was grey, out of everyone he was the only one who hadn’t seen Loki yet. In the interests of not completely traumatizing Loki I suggested, as quietly as possible, that only Bruce, Thor and I went in. The others looked concerned but went back to the living room in silence.   
Bruce looked as if he was about to be sick. The rusty smell of blood permeated the air, contaminating it. I wasn’t sure if the smell was coming from Thor or inside the room.   
“Don’t freak out” my only words to Bruce, before I opened the door and we walked in.

When JARVIS had said that Loki was conscious, I hadn’t really thought what that meant. I heard Bruce’s sharp intake of breath as he saw Loki. The bedclothes were dripping with blood. Deep red blood, not a natural colour. Loki had moved himself into the corner between the bed and the wall, how I do not know. He was so broken that I was surprised that he was even conscious, not that he looked conscious right now. I couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not due to the metal contraption obscuring them. He had folded himself somewhat awkwardly into a ball which would not have been comfortable even if he weren’t injured so extensively. 

Thor was crying. I never thought I would say that, but as he gazed at the shell his brother had become tears dripped silently down his face. I reached out and put a hand on his arm as Bruce took a deep breath and walked towards Loki, medical supplies at his side. 

I was not sure how much Loki could sense in his current state, I knew that it had once been impossible to sneak up on the trickster god but he remained still as Bruce approached him. It was only when Bruce reached the corner of the bed that Loki flinched violently. 

“Please… please… hurts… no more…” Loki whimpered quietly, his voice mangled and strained. As his lips moved they pulled on the stitches and fresh blood poured down his face. Thor gave a choked sob and turned his head away. I wanted to comfort him, but I had no words. I don’t know if I could have brought myself to speak anyway. I was mute with horror. 

Bruce began to move again and Loki tried to get even closer to the wall before giving up completely. He just went limp. Were it not for the strangled gasps emanating from him I would have assumed him dead or at least unconscious. He had given up. He thought we were going to hurt him. I felt physically sick but I couldn’t pry my eyes away from the macabre scene in front of me. 

“Hey, I’m Bruce. I’m going to help you. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you anymore. Nobody is going to hurt you.” Bruce approached Loki quietly but loud enough that Loki could hear where he was. It was blatantly obvious that Loki did not believe anything that Bruce had just said, if he had even heard it. He was just waiting for pain, trembling violently. When he was as close to Loki as he could get Bruce turned to me and Thor, anguish clear on his face.

“I can’t help him when he is like this. I need to sedate him.” Loki shook even more hearing this and more blood dripped off the sodden sheets, breaking the silence as it fell into the puddles already forming on the once white carpet. Bruce looked at me and then at Thor. Thor was a mess, at some point he had sunk onto his knees, just staring at the mess that was his brother. I was still upright and whatever Bruce saw in my face, it convinced him that I could help. He motioned me over and I went as quietly as I could, feeling the blood soak into my slippers the closer I got to the bed.

Loki must have sensed my approach somehow as he started moving again, trying to get away however he could. Bruce ignored this, though I could see from the tension in his body that he was desperate to make it stop. He placed his medical bag on the side, ignoring Loki’s flinch and the broken pleas coming from his torn mouth. When he turned back to me he had the biggest syringe I had ever seen. He motioned for me to grab Loki and bring him slightly closer. I gulped and reached for the trickster’s hip – it seemed the least damaged of all of the areas that were visible. The god was only wearing a loincloth which I assumed had been white at some point and was wet with blood when I touched him. The second my hand made contact he went still, shaking almost imperceptibly. Gently I guided him closer and before he could register what was going on and flinch back, Bruce had injected him with whatever was in the syringe. He went completely limp almost immediately. 

I moved away from the bed and looked at my bloodstained hands in shock and disgust. Disgust at myself for letting Thor take Loki back to Asgard, disgust for the way that the once proud god had been brutalised and shock that the poor creature was still alive. When I looked up, Bruce had Loki in his arms and blood was already staining his shirt. I grabbed the medical bag and followed him out of the room, collecting Thor on the way out. Bruce took Loki down to the medical floor and I went to the living room to see the others.

We were covered in blood and Thor was still noiselessly crying when we reached them. Natasha, Clint and Steve were spread out across the furniture in complete silence, all of them tense. They looked up when Thor and I entered.

“Well?” It was Clint that broke the silence. Steve got up and hugged Thor, trying to console him in any way he could. I looked at him thankfully from over Thor’s shoulder.   
“Bruce has sedated him and moved him to the medical floor. He is going to do an examination now.” I sat down heavily on the pink chair Thor had previously occupied, grabbing an unfinished bottle of scotch off the table. Natasha wordlessly removed it from my hand and placed it out of reach. I saw her point, I needed to be sober this evening. We all sat in silence, broken only by Thor’s sobbing. Nobody could blame the guy for crying, even if we all thought that he could have helped Loki earlier. 

After what must have been two hours at least JARVIS spoke. 

“Mr Banner has finished with Mr Laufeyson now. In his words ‘Get down here now… this is fucked up…’ Mr Banner is on the medical floor.”

Thor had long since stopped crying and had fallen into a fitful sleep. Steve shook him gently.

“Hey, big guy, Bruce has news” 

Wordlessly we all got into the elevator and went to the medical floor. Bruce was in one of the consulting rooms, Loki was nowhere to be seen. 

“What kind of fuckers would do this to a person, this is horrific… I… I…” Bruce looked angrier than I had ever seen him. He didn’t look like he was about to turn into the Hulk any time soon though. Steve seemed shocked by his language, Bruce never swore, ever. 

“How bad is it?” ever pragmatic, Natasha got straight down to business. 

“How bad! How bad!” he looked like he was about to explode.

“Easy… take your time” Steve looked worried. Bruce visibly took a deep breath and motioned for us to sit down. When we were seated, he began.

“I examined Loki as thoroughly as I could and to be honest I would not be surprised were he to die any minuet. His anatomy is very different to anything I have ever come across, including Thor, so I am not sure about everything. However, there is an extensive list of things I am sure of. I am not sure if Loki is lucky to be alive or not, to be honest, I am sure he wishes he were dead. If I am going to speak of this I am going to have to do it as scientifically as possible so excuse any professional detachment – this does not mean that I care any less.

“If we start with the skeleton, Loki’s legs have been shattered, whether this occurred repeatedly or in once incident I cannot be sure. His pelvis is broken in three places, which is contusive to the extensive sexual abuse I believe he has suffered. Both his arms are broken in multiple places and his wrists are shattered. All of his ribs appear to be broken and he has a punctured lung. Both his fingernails and toenails appear to have been removed at least once, leading to extensive bruising under the nails themselves. Speaking of bruising, there is extensive external and internal bruising. There is also widespread internal bleeding. He appears to have sustained major injuries externally. Including multiple cuts which vary in severity, 6 old stab wounds and 5 newer ones.

“He also appears to have been hung from a wall leading to manacles on both his wrists and ankles to have become embedded in his skin. I believe that this has also lead to both of his shoulders being dislocated and associated tendons and muscles torn. He also has what appears to be a collar embedded in his neck. The mask you saw on his face was indeed welded on and I believe he has been effectively blinded over the last 5 years, whether he will regain his sight or not is impossible to determine. He is severely dehydrated and suffers from extreme malnutrition. His body also appears to have been overheated regularly. There is also evidence of extensive previous torture. The psychological effects of this are at this time, unknown.”

When he finished we were all struck dumb in horror. How on earth is he still alive! 

“What have you done so far?” Steve asked in the same tone of voice Bruce had used tell us of the damage. 

“I have tried to stop the bleeding as best I could and have set some of the easier breaks… I really don’t know enough about… whatever Loki is, to be able to do much more without giving him a blood transfusion first.” Everyone looked at Thor. He looked completely hopeless.

“I cannot help you with that… wait, did you say he was wearing a collar?” eyes wide, Thor stared at Bruce, begging him to affirm this. I couldn’t believe it. Why would Loki wearing a collar be in any way good for anyone? The others seemed to be thinking the same thing, even Bruce looked confused.

“Yes, he is…” I was not sure what Thor was getting at here, why would it make any difference? With this affirmation, Thor rushed off. We were slow to follow and I didn’t miss the look that Steve and Bruce exchanged. That kind of ‘search me’ look that makes you realise everyone else is just as confused as you are.

By the time we reached the room Loki was in, Thor had obtained a large pair of surgical scissors and was approaching the prone form on the bed. Bruce rushed to stop him and the two had a hushed conversation which appeared to end when Bruce snatched the scissors and moved towards Loki himself. What followed was gruesome and not something I ever want to think of again. Thor was adamant that taking the collar off would help, but from where I was standing it didn’t look good at all. 

With every move Bruce made, more blood seemed to gush from Loki’s neck. The previously white bed looked as if it had been used in a horror movie. Eventually Bruce pealed the collar away from his neck with a wet ripping sound that made me cringe and want to throw up. The second the collar was gone a blinding green light swamped the room, echoed by a scream. 

What had we done…?


	6. Chapter 5 - Loki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horrific abuse and torture are in this chapter - do not read if this will affect you.

What was happening? I didn’t understand. When two men came into the room accompanied by my… brother… I didn't know what they wanted. I pushed my broken wrecked body back as far as I possibly could, curling into myself, knowing full well why they were here, expecting to be tortured further. Every muscle, every sinew, every cell in my horrible form screamed in absolute agony at the slightest movement and I couldn't stop myself from shaking with the pain, which of course only made it hurt more. Then they started to get closer and I braced myself for more pain. It never came. 

I couldn’t see, that sense was deprived of me long ago. I strained my ears for the even the slightest indication of movement. It sounded like someone was coming very close, I heard something or someone hit the floor and recoiled slightly, ignoring the screaming pain. I had lost concentration and flinched violently, almost screaming at the acute pain that assaulted me. I started mumbling, anything to stop this before it started. Not that that had ever worked before, I knew the rules and I don’t know why I thought that this time would be any different. The rules said no speaking of any kind, no noise, no protest, it only makes it worse. Sometimes the guards liked to hear me beg, maybe if I beg now… hope was bad, hope was dangerous, hope made everything worse. That was another rule, no hope. Don’t even try to imagine getting out of this. The Allfather made it very clear that I was never leaving this cell. The conditions had changed, yes, it was a different room that much I could discern over the pain. That never meant anything good.

I resumed begging, the crude stitching pulling at my lips, triggering a wave of white hot agony that crashed straight through me. I was used to it. The person moved closer, close enough to touch me. In a last ditch attempt to make this somewhat easier I went completely limp, maybe it would hurt less if I didn’t protest. Not that it ever did, but the only way I could ever get through this was to attempt to delude myself. My mind was so wreaked that that wasn’t even hard anymore, there were no voices of logic, no comforting words of any kind, just terror. 

The person above me began to speak, he sounded different to anyone who had previously tortured me. Not Asgardian. That never meant anything good, he sounded like he was trying to reassure me. I had fallen for that too many times for it to be anything but terrifying at this point. The Allfather had even used my mo… Frigga’s voice to attempt to reassure me, after the first time, I never believed him. Oh I wanted to, I wanted to so badly. But that was the rule, no hope.   
“I can’t help him when he is like this, I need to sedate him.” I shook harder hearing this. Someone was crying, probably an illusion… I could hear a steady dripping noise, probably my blood, well one thing hadn’t changed. Suddenly I heard another set of footsteps hesitantly approaching and something heavy was set down near me. I redoubled my futile efforts to get away from the newest threat, broken pleas escaping me, in what language I do not know. Suddenly a shaft of excruciating agony rocketed through my whole being as someone grabbed my hip and pulled me towards them. I could feel broken bones scraping over each other, torn muscle dragging as I was dragged over the surface, wet with my blood. I couldn’t even scream. The pain had started, at least I knew what was happening now. I understood this, this was normal. Then I blacked out. 

I couldn’t fight it, gods know I tried. The blackness dragged me under until everything was a complete blur. I could still feel but I could hear nothing, see nothing, move nothing. Like a leaden rock I lay there, unmoving, powerless to even shift slightly so when the being who had drugged me picked me up my broken bones didn’t scream out in splintering agony as they crushed them together. Torture by crushing then, wouldn’t be the first time. 

This being carried me in a way that almost seemed gentle. I couldn’t understand why, they thought I was unconscious, why would they be this careful. They must have thought me disgusting, so repulsive that even to grip harder would be a trial. I heard distorted sounds through the drugged haze and resigned myself to the inevitable horror they would be thinking up for me. It truly was horrific.

Every bone I had broken, every laceration in my skin, all of the burns, the places they had touched me, every story my skin told, all were looked at in painstaking detail by this being. They pulled and prodded and lifted and examined and all the while I was in agony. This was a new kind of torture, being manhandled with no new pain, bar that stimulated by the unwarranted movement of my mangled limbs. The drug was clearly meant to knock me out but if it were intended to remove all pain, it was not working, I was merely powerless to resist any of the investigations. Nothing had changed. Somehow, even after all this time I still manage to believe things will get better, only to have my hopes crushed time and time again. No hope was better, no hope was safer.   
By the time I realised that the being had attempted to fix some of the more minor injuries, the pain of which I barely noticed above the cacophony of pain signals emanating from every cell in my body, the latest creature to encounter me had gone, presumably to discuss how close I was to death with my fa… Odin. With Odin. I shut that thought down faster than anything. I couldn’t even bring myself to hate him anymore, hate took too much energy, energy I no longer had and hadn't had for the longest time. Besides, I deserved everything that has happened to me. All of it. Every beating, every crack of the whip, all of it. I am a monster after all. I exist at the behest of others, to be used as they wish and to be disposed of as they desire. 

Then, out of nowhere the door to my latest cell was slammed open and a horrifyingly determined individual swept into the room, straight for the place to where the creature who had investigated me had gone. I had thought that that torture session was remarkably mild, now was the rest. I braced myself internally for the pain. I couldn’t beg, begging wouldn’t do anything, though sometimes they liked the begging, it made them happy. A happy torturer was often worse than a morose one. Though I was passed caring at that moment. 

The figures approached where I was lying. Then the most excruciating agony of everything I had ever experienced pierced through me like a bolt from a giant’s crossbow. Every nerve in my body was on fire, every tendon was a river of molten steel melting its way through me, all thoughts were lost in a white haze of anguish that permeated my entire being. My magic, that had been pent up for so long, was released to sear though my very being. Part of my mind rejoiced in its re-emergence but it felt foreign to me now, something to be feared. I could barely remember what it felt like to have magic. This was only a gateway to a further torture I was sure. Taking it away again would once again rip away and bind the very essence of my soul. I wouldn’t live through that again. 

Death, death is good, I would welcome the sweet embrace of the void. But they are too good for that, this won’t kill me, it just designed to elongate my torment. I vaguely felt the stitches pull at my wreaked lips when I screamed as the tidal wave of white hot agony streaked across my mind removing the last vestiges of sanity and any attempt at rational thought. This time, when I blacked out, I wasn’t sure if I was ever coming back.


	7. Chapter 6 - Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is reading this and commenting! These comments make my day and really motivate me to keep writing! As a thank you to everyone who has commented and left kudos, here is a new chapter! I hope you enjoy!

The light was blinding and the scream seemed to go on forever. I could barely see Loki through the light, but his outline was tense, back arched off the bed, joints locked in agony. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, the light faded. It looked like Loki was absorbing the tendrils of light, he was glowing with it. All of the previously open wounds, all the bruises and areas where the bones were broken were glowing, it looked as if his blood had turned to lava. Weird, glowing green lava, but lava none the less.

Throughout the whole ordeal Thor had been by his brother’s side. When the collar was initially removed both he and Bruce had been thrown across the room at the tidal wave of power and light. Now Thor was running one of his hands through his hair while the other had a death grip on the side of the bed – I could have sworn I heard the metal give. As soon as the light had burst from Loki Thor had cycled through a range of emotions, elation, horror and now worry. He was staring at his brother now, the intensity of his gaze made me slightly worried the bedsheets would burst into flames. It seemed like an age since the light had faded before Thor turned towards me and the others. We had been waiting at the door, Bruce had reasoned that at this moment it was Thor, not him, who could help Loki. 

Thor looked exhausted, but mostly relieved which pushed me away from ‘full on panic’ towards a tentative ‘is it better’ mind-set. The others appeared to have the same thoughts. Steve stepped forwards and took Thor by the arm.  
“Do you need anything?” Steve asked gently, his voice barely rising above a whisper. The room was eerily quiet, the screaming had stopped and the unnatural green light was gone, leaving the room looking pale. The silence seemed to ring like the moment when a concert has just ended and the audience hold a moment of silence as the last cord fades before bursting into applause. 

Thor shook his head wearily, sending one last glance in the direction of his brother’s prone form. “There is nothing anyone can do for Loki now, this fight is his own”.

Everyone looked at the still body, looking so small and fragile in the huge hospital bed. ‘The fight is his own’ what on earth did Thor mean by that? Loki looked dead, not like he was fighting anything. The strange green glow had not left his body and the metal of the strange mask that was clamped over his eyes glinted ominously in the harsh light of the medical bay. I was startled out of my trance as a hand gently came down on my shoulder. 

“Come on Tony, Thor will explain everything”, Natasha was trying to lead me away, back upstairs. I knew that she was only doing this for my own good, she was being kind, but I just couldn’t leave. I turned around to face her, leaving her hand on my shoulder. 

“I can’t leave him. Not like this. Not now… He… I… If this was me… I… I don’t want him to be… alone…” My voice was husky like I had just been crying, maybe I had, and to be honest I wasn’t really aware about what had happened in the last couple of hours. I just knew I couldn’t leave him here, fighting for something, probably his life, alone. After what Thor had told me of Loki it had been apparent that nobody had ever really cared for Loki before, no one had been there for him. He had been alone for 1047 years and now he could die. No matter what people say about me, I could not let anyone fight for their life alone. Natasha seemed to understand the message my broken words tried to convey. She wrapped her arms around me in a rare moment of compassion, as I felt her body against mine, the comfort, I felt like breaking down completely. She pulled back slowly and looked me in the eye.

“You stay here with Loki then, I will come back and tell you what Thor want to say. If you need anything, Jarvis will tell us.” She pulled herself onto her tiptoes and whispered in my ear “He won’t be alone and neither will you”. Tears threatened in that moment and Natasha gave me one last glance before she left the room and I was alone with a god. 

I made my way over to Loki’s bed, dragging my feet like a man condemned. I didn’t want to see what kind of damage had been inflicted on the once strong Loki Laufeyson. When I reached his side and saw the extent of the injuries myself, clean for the first time, I felt numb. How could anyone survive this? I collapsed in the conveniently placed chair next to his head. The glow given off by the green light inside Loki was strange and comforting in equal parts. The bleeding appeared to have stopped from all the smaller wounds, but the major ones were still bleeding sluggishly. The once white sheets were now a dark wet red, turning brown as the blood dried. Loki was fascinating. His blue skin was like nothing I had ever seen, black markings and ridges decorating his body and face. His raven black hair was matted and long, arranged chaotically around his head. The horns on his head were absolutely beautiful, I could tell that they would be tall and curved were they full height, rather like his golden helmet.   
Admiring Loki’s alien physique had momentarily distracted me from the horrific damage done to his form. His bones stuck out from his skin and where he had once been toned and muscular he was now literally nothing but skin and bone. Torture is, to my mind anyway, the singular worst thing that anyone can undergo. Seeing Loki’s battered body brought back memories I would far rather have oppressed, memories of the cave where I became Iron man among other, more recent horrors. I had seen my fair share of pain and battle in my life, but something told me that what I had experienced was merely a fraction of the hell Loki and to an extent, Thor, had gone through. 

These guys were Gods for fucks sake! It was basically impossible to injure Thor, so the amount of force and dedicated hate put into tearing Loki apart would not have been inconsiderable. At that thought I felt sick and pulled my gaze away from the alien on the bed. Angrily I muttered, 'Pull yourself together Tony, you stupid man. Look at him. Look at this. You cannot pull yourself away, you cannot look disgusted. Imagine what that would do to him. Pull yourself together.'

Great now even my mind was angry with me. As I looked at the form on the bed I could scarcely believe that this was the super villain that had nearly destroyed our team and the whole of New York. From what Thor had said, Loki was more than capable of taking down the whole city alone. So why didn’t he. Thor had said that he was controlled, his eyes were blue during the invasion, I can attest to that personally. But why did he loose? He had everything going for him, even if he was controlled he could have still used his magic to mean that he and his army would not loose. He could have ensured a win. But he didn't. He surrendered even when he regained control. Did he loose on purpose? 

I had been contemplating this for quite some time when Natasha returned with Bruce behind her. She sat down on the floor in front of me while Bruce went over to his medical equipment and started fiddling with something. 

“Thor told us that the collar we removed from Loki is a magic binding device. Frost Giants are beings of magic and to have their magic bound is tantamount to torture in and of itself. The way Thor explained it is that magic is a free force of which you can use externally or possess internally or both together. Loki was capable of both these types of magic and his ‘internal magic’ was more extensive than anyone had ever seen before – hence he was the most powerful sorcerer in the nine realms. Apparently when they bind a person’s magic they suppress the internal magic and the ability to wield external magic. Since magic is a free force and should be able to flow as it wishes suppressing it and containing it is incredibly painful. Thor said that internal magic is constantly being replenished, so needs to be used to prevent uncontrolled acts of magic or permanent damage to the wielder. In binding Loki’s magic they prevented him from being able to release any magic or use any external magic. A massive part of who Loki was, was removed.” She paused for a minute to check I was following. I was horrified but I was keeping up with the explanation and nodded for her to continue.

“When they bound his magic the pressure of his internal magic, building up over the 5 years he has been wearing the collar, would have been an additional torture. He could not heal himself and every time he tried to use the magic the collar fired a shock of something like electricity into him. Thor said that this punishment is very rare and not intended for prisoners that were either very powerful or that the King needed to keep alive. Clearly Loki was neither of these. When the collar was removed, all of the pent up internal magic exploded outwards as well as re-entering Loki. Thor believes that if Loki’s body accepts the magic then it will heal him, but it will take a while since it is not intentional healing magic but rather a type of unintentional self-preservation. Thor thinks that his body has accepted the magic, but he had no idea of the extent of the damage to Loki’s mind. He said that it could be anything.” She lapsed into silence as this information soaked in. Asgard seemed like it was stuck in the middle ages in terms of punishments but given advanced modern and magical weapons to carry them out.

“Oh also, Thor said that very few mages are able to make these magic repressing collars and that many years ago Odin – Thor’s father, made Loki make some as a precaution for magic wielding enemies. Apparently Loki was thrilled that his father trusted him enough to make an object so important so he did his absolute best and made them completely inescapable, unable to be removed by any magic even if own. The collars could only be removed by someone of the Royal bloodline of Asgard. At this time Loki didn’t know he was adopted, he thought that he was part of this line. So as an added torture as well as a reminder, that collar,” she pointed at the object that had been removed from Loki’s neck, “was made by Loki himself.”


	8. Chapter 7 - Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments! Please keep them coming, they are incredibly motivational :)

After that shocking revelation Natasha left, she said she was going to find Clint, but after what she had just told me, and the fact that she couldn’t even look at Loki, I was willing to guess that there was more to it than that. While Bruce was fiddling with the medical stuff on the other side of the room, I walked over to the collar to examine it in slightly more detail. My first thought was, ‘It’s brown’ swiftly followed by ‘What the hell Tony of course it’s brown, bloodstains are brown idiot’. Even my thoughts were ridiculing me now. 

The collar looked ancient, and probably was, depending on when Loki had made it. I supressed a shudder at that thought. Once upon a time Loki had been proud of his creation, rather like I was proud of mine, and still am. I mean, come on, have you seen the suit. The collar looked like it was made of leather, the good quality supple looking kind, not the cheap stuff that looks like plastic. I idly wondered what animal the leather came from, and if indeed Asgard had the same types of animals as earth, or even anything I would recognise. I was betting on the no side of that argument, if Thor’s comment about Bilgesnipe was anything to go on. 

It was obvious the collar had been put on Loki far too tight and tightened regularly. The buckle was still done up. When Thor had cut it he hadn’t even tried to undo it, the leather had been far too embedded in the wound it had made in Loki’s neck. It looked a bit like the types of collars used for very large very dangerous dogs, minus the spikes. Bruce had put it into a surgical evidence type bag but I didn’t even want to touch it. Beneath the blood, old and new, I could vaguely see something green. Looking more closely there were what looked like runes flowing through the leather, all the same green colour as the magic that had rushed from Loki when it was removed. This was Loki’s handiwork alright. 

I was startled out of my reverie when Bruce called me from the other side of the room. He had hooked Loki’s body up to all sorts of scary looking medical equipment and was gesturing for me to come over.   
“I couldn’t get needles through his skin, it is too tough. I could try and inject the anaesthetic into an already open wound as I did earlier, but as you can see they are all glowing now, and I don’t know how his body would react to such an intrusion.” I nodded, not really sure where he was going with this.

“Thor has gone to bed, Steve is with him. Clint and Tasha are somewhere else, I don’t think they took this very well. I need your help Tony.” This caught my attention and I raised my head to look him in the eye.  
“Loki is seriously unconscious right now, I have no idea what is going on inside his mind or body right now. However, with all that he has been through and the fact that his… magic is trying to heal him now. I think that the best course of action would be to fix him up as much as possible while he is unaware. It will be a long operation and I need a lab assistant. Will you help?” I didn’t even answer his question, I just walked over to the medical equipment, washed my hands and put on the elbow length gloves and scrubs. When I returned he had already set up a massive light above Loki’s prone form. 

“He is pretty cool to the touch, but according to Thor he is still far too warm. Frost giants should apparently be cold enough to generate immediate frost bite on contact with bare skin. For our purposes this is not the worst news since I would rather not get injured while helping him, though we will eventually need to cool him down a lot more. Thor seems to think that his magic won’t prevent us from helping him, but he wasn’t sure to what extent it would help us.” As Bruce was telling me this, he was examining some of the rather large wounds on Loki’s stomach and arms. Eventually he addressed me again, all business.

“I want to get a full body X-ray so we can see exactly what we are looking at. I took some earlier, but I want the whole picture. Who knows what his magic will have fixed by now.” As he spoke I started wheeling over the X-ray machine, it was a seriously expensive mobile unit that I didn’t even know I owned. Bruce took what I can only assume to be a million pictures, then he sent me off to collect the pictures from the other room like some kind of intern. 

When the images were finally up on the backlit wall behind Loki’s bed and the extent of the damage was finally revealed to me, I nearly threw up. Bruce looked grim. 

“His magic appears to have fixed some of the internal bruising and haemorrhaging, but the bones need to be set before it can heal them, if they heal in the wrong place he could be permanently paralysed.” The next few hours were awful. I don’t know how many times I heard the sickening sliding of broken bones fitting back together. Bruce was hard at work fitting splints and casts – we were not sure how fast the injuries would heal so Bruce was highly reluctant to put any bolts inside Loki’s body. Every time we moved a bone back into position, green light formed around the broken area – I assumed this mean that his magic was fixing the area. 

By the time we had finished setting all of Loki’s broken bones I was exhausted. Every bone in his body it seemed had been damaged in some way, some had been crushed, and some broken in multiple places and some only fractured. In short, Loki was a mess. There was nothing we could do about the black bruising on Loki’s deep blue skin, but we dutifully stitched up all of his wounds, big or small (the majority were massive). I lost count of how much sewing I did. Suffice to say I was skilled by the end whereas previously my sewing experience was very minimal and usually limited to whatever material I needed for the suit. At this point Loki looked like some sort of mummy, his bony emaciated frame was almost entirely covered in pristine white medical bandages. Bruce and I stood back to admire our work – the green light had been ‘fixing’ every bone we set and sealing all the cuts we had sewn shut as we went along. The extent of Loki’s injuries was truly horrific, once again I found myself in awe of the broken god, how on earth had anyone survived this. The worst wasn’t even over yet. As we prepared for our next task, Steve appeared. 

“Thor is asleep. I don’t know for how long but he is out now. He blames himself for this.” He looked at Loki, “poor sod…” Bruce was still in his ‘doctor mode’ and saw Steve’s arrival as a chance for more help. 

“Steve, we need to remove the mask from Loki’s face and get the manacles off his wrists. I would also like to unsew his mouth as he needs sustenance as soon as possible. When Thor wakes up I will ask him what Loki has been eating.” Steve looked almost comical in his scrubs and gloves, and I was pretty sure I looked no better. Bruce and I were pretty much covered in Loki’s bright red blood, a strange shade, but considering he was blue who was I to know anything – I am an engineer, not a doctor. We looked like something out of a horror movie. Earlier Bruce had bandaged up Loki’s horns as best he could. He had also cut some of his hair and pulled it away from his face.

The mask was crude and looked incredibly painful. When we sent Loki back to Asgard he had been wearing a metal gag to prevent him from speaking and spreading his notorious lies, which he would do were he permitted to speak Thor had assured us. It was almost like someone had copied that device and clamped it over his eyes instead. It had been pressed on far too tightly and had dug into the skin around his face. I would not be surprised if, when we got this thing off, Loki would have scars for the rest of his life. 

After a bit of searching, it became apparent that the mask had been strapped on. It was simple enough to cut the straps and thereby loosen the mask. It did not come off that easily however, and required Steve to help Bruce lever it off Loki’s face. When it was removed and we could finally see Loki properly for the first time I was mesmerised. He truly was beautiful. Even broken, emaciated and covered in blood, he was breath-taking. The markings that had been visible all over his body were even more intricate on his face and the skin above his mouth had barely been damaged. The mask had bitten into the skin where it had been tied on, but the wounds were not deep and Bruce seemed to think that given time they would be practically invisible. 

The state of his eyes remained a mystery. Bruce had opened them and shone a light to check pupil reflex and they seemed to be in complete working order. The major shock came from the fact that they were completely blood red. I caught Steve crossing himself as if Loki were the devil. Sometimes I forgot how religious he was. Bruce just gritted his teeth and carried on. I mean, it was a shock, but Loki was a blue alien with horns – was it really that surprising that his eyes would also be a weird colour? Bruce quickly cut the leather cord that had been binding Loki’s mouth shut and removed it from the wounds. Once the blood had been cleaned off Loki’s face it became obvious that this particular method of torture had happened before. Thinking on it, there had been something in actual Norse mythology about that…   
The manacles were far easier to remove and once Loki had been completely cleaned up and all of the medical tools put away, Steve, Bruce and I collapsed in a heap next to the bed. 

“Well,” I looked at the clock, “10 hours… not bad… I might just, sleep for a week now…” God I was tired, Bruce looked just as shattered as I was. I don’t think any of us had slept since Loki had arrived, and I had been drunk then, so I’m impressed the walls are not spinning yet. I had been leaning on Steve, but moved when I saw how uncomfortable he looked. Oh my God. How could I possibly forget that the last time I had any real contact with Steve was the reason I was newly single… American flag underwear… I couldn’t stop the laughter escaping. I think, I was probably going into shock as I lay on the floor in the med bay, laughing so hard I ended up gasping for air like a fish. Steve looked worried, but Bruce just sighed.

“Tony, I know it has been a long… well not exactly a day, but we are all tired and I know laughter is a panic response but can you please shut up before I literally beet you to shreds.” He sounded serious so I shut it. Pulling myself together I stood up. The sobering sight of Loki’s slight form lying on the hospital bed was enough to shock me back into reality. We had made the decision earlier that we were going to move Loki to the newly vacated guest room in in my penthouse suit, where he had briefly been before. Natasha had changed the sheets and cleaned up all the blood so it was a sanitary area for a patient. If Loki woke up or anything went wrong, JARVIS would alert everyone except Thor and we would be on hand to help. 

We settled Loki in to the massive bed, propping his limp form up with pillows. The room had been chilled down to about 5ᵒC – as cold as the air conditioning could make it. He looked so tiny and frail lying there covered in bandages. He hadn’t so much as stirred since the collar had been removed. The green light was still fixing him from the inside. There was nothing more we could do. Bruce and Steve left, something about much needed sleep. I didn’t want to leave Loki alone though, he must be so scared… I ended up dragging my bedding onto the sofa in Loki’s room, it was not comfortable, but I know that were I Loki, I would not want to be alone. I instructed JARVIS to wake me should anything change and passed out almost immediately.


	9. Chapter 9 - Loki

The agony seemed eternal, blistering, white hot agony that raced along every inch of my body. So when it began to fade I was in two minds about its disappearance. The fact that I had any mind to reason with at all was a happy coincidence. The lessening of the pain could mean that either the magic, I refused to think of it as my magic, had run its course and had prepared me for a new round of torture. Or, I was dead. There was nothing to it. I, more than anyone, knew the power of those collars, knew what they did to the magic of the wearer. I understood exactly what this collar would have done to me. My magic had been bound for who knows how long, building and building. The most recent pain from its release should have killed me. The only thing I could think of that would have saved me was the collar itself. That I had made it would most probably have been the reason that I hadn’t died. 

Magic binding collars are notorious for leaving the wearer insane and unable to ever use magic again when worn for a long time. When I had made mine I was certain that no magic could escape their bondage. However at that time the thought had never crossed my mind that they would be used on me. I had never dreamed of testing their effect on their maker. If the magic within the collar and the magic being bound were the same would this strengthen or weaken the binding? I had once been keen on discovering new aspects of magic, pushing its limits and even inventing whole new varieties. As the only expert in the field, only I could even attempt to hypothesise as to the answer to this question. 

The most likely explanation of my seeming untouched mental state and being alive is probably that the collar, for all its intended maliciousness, failed. Because the magic that made it work and the magic it was binding were the same it did not function as it was intended to. What had probably occurred was that my internal magic had been, in part, absorbed into the collar itself, preventing excessive overload, which strengthened the binding, but protected my mind. The other explanation could be to do with sustenance. Since they begun to torture me I have been given neither food nor water but have never died from either starvation or thirst, though I felt them most strongly. I can only conclude that this effect was due to my magic, inadvertently keeping me alive when I most desperately wanted to die. How poetic. A slow death from starvation would have suited me just fine. 

The norns have doubtless not planned such an easy end for me. Nothing lies in my future but pain and suffering, no reprieve and no end. But now, with the pain gone I could think more clearly, my body was in a horrific state, but I didn’t want to think about that. It seemed my magic had been most adept at healing my unconscious form. I lay there for what appeared to be an immeasurable time, still and quiet. I was… calm. How? I felt around my surroundings, running my hands across my emaciated body, feeling every bone, every ridge of scar tissue and every strange marking. I was aware of the form my body took and, while I was repelled by it, there was nothing I could do about it. I had been like this for an incredibly long time, so I should have already been used to looking outwardly like the monster I so clearly was within. Yet I was not, and felt the revulsion as strongly as I did when I first saw this form, before the mask was clamped over my eyes and my sight stolen. My limbs protested at the movement, I was far from fully healed, but most of my bones were in place for the first time in years. 

It was around this time I first realised I was lying on what must be a bed. The sensation was all but foreign to me. I was far more used to hanging, never standing, nor sitting, nor lying. I could not talk, I could not see. I therefore resigned myself to this being yet another hallucination, one where I felt no pain and was in a soft environment. It was an interesting hallucination, the usual ones were of yet more pain and suffering and normally involved one or more of the people I care about perishing gruesomely in front of my eyes. Contrary to popular belief there are people I care about and, despite their betrayal I could never get over their continued demise in my visions. Every time I saw their deaths it was as if it were the first time. Maybe they had changed the gas that induced hallucinations, maybe I was supposed to feel like it was all over. Doubtless, it had happened before, except that in my hallucinations I could normally see… and now I could not.

This realisation had my heart racing, fear thrilling through my veins. Was this real? What could they possibly do to me now? They had taken everything, absolutely everything from me, what more could they do to make this worse, to increase my suffering? My breathing picked up and I unconsciously pushed myself into a sitting position, my hands clasped together around my knees, trapping me in a small ball of my own making. I buried my face in my knees, whatever the purpose of this new found freedom, I could at least move in ways I had not been allowed to do for years. I relished in the brief freedom, but the terror remained, what new horrors were planned. 

“Oh my God… you’re awake!” the voice sounded across the room I was caged in. It belonged to a male, someone who was clearly very excited about my consciousness. A whimper escaped my lips and I pushed myself as far away from the sound as possible, my limbs screaming in protest. This strange creature did not sound like any of the torturers I was used to, clearly this person was new. New only ever meant worse. 

I pressed my lips together, I will not cry out, I will not give this one the satisfaction. He hasn’t even touched you yet, you idiot, do not let him see how weak you are, he’ll probably like it. My mind was as vicious as ever, making up for whatever pain was missing in my body. The edge of the surface I was curled up on dipped with the weight of an additional body. I went completely still, an irrational state, it would make no difference in the end, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t see me.

“Oh shit I’m sorry, you must be terrified” he sounded angry and I flinched, anger, whether directed at me or not, never boded well for me in the long run. He moved away, but did not leave the room. I heard the sound of liquid being poured and then the footsteps returned to the bed. I was frozen with fear. My heart beating so fast I was surprised it did not just leap out of my chest completely. My brain ran through a million possible scenarios, each more terrible than the last. What could this man possibly want with me? It was the torturers that didn’t act immediately that were the worst, with most you could generally have a fair idea of what to expect pretty quickly, but with this kind, the suspense would make whatever they did in the end infinitely worse for the waiting. I had given up caring what happened to me a long time ago, yet every time I had the same response. There must be a reason for that, some annoying self-preservation instinct which prevented me from getting used to the repeated agony. The guards and torturers of Asgard were very good at what they did. 

My thoughts were all but halted when the man came closer and placed a container, presumably containing the liquid, on a surface near me, before backing away again. I didn’t move. 

“Loki,” the man spoke softly, but I tensed at the sound of that name, that which had once belonged to me, “Loki, can you see anything, the mask is gone, you should be able to open your eyes”. Inadvertently my hand shot up towards my face, ignoring the pain, and I froze, hand halfway. There is no way this is not a trick, they want me to do what they said and if I do they will laugh at my ignorance and hurt me. Equally, if I don’t they will punish me for not obeying them. My hand approached my face slower now, shaking with the anticipation of pain. Then my fingers brushed smooth, unblemished skin. The mask was gone… 

My other hand joined the first, the mask was gone. It was gone! The skin felt strange, I was so used to any skin on my body being covered in some kind of injury or blood or a bruise that would doubtless hurt when touched. I momentarily forgot the presence of the man as I took in this new revelation. My palm brushed across my lips as I touched my eyes. A bolt of surprise hit me, the stitches in my lips… gone? And gone they were. Further exploration revealed that they had been pulled out and the wounds treated. But why?  
The man didn’t seem to mind watching me, he made no move and did not speak. Was this one of the men who had carried me earlier? What did he want from me? Nothing he had done so far had resulted in any fresh injuries, in fact I appeared to be healing. This was beyond my comprehension. Hope resurfaced and this time I couldn’t stop it. Hope is dangerous. That was rule number one, don’t hope, because nothing will ever change. But no matter how many times I repeated this to myself I could not stop it. They say hope is more powerful than fear, more powerful than any other emotion, aside from love perhaps. But then again, how would I know. 

I moved my hands away from my eyes, they were undamaged and this man wanted to know if I could see. Slowly, I opened my eyes and immediately shut them, the light was blinding, a new torture perhaps? When nothing changed, I tried again. If this was torture, it was testament to how far I had fallen that I continued to inflict it on myself with no external prompting. It must be hope again, hope that maybe this man wasn’t here to hurt me (stupid), maybe I would see again (nice wishful thinking there). I tried, and I tried, each time I was able to open my eyes for slightly longer, until finally I could open them fully. It became immediately apparent that the room was in fact pretty dark, and that my eyes were ridiculously sensitive. Given that I had not used them for a very long time, I took that as normal and continued to look around. Almost immediately my gaze landed on the man sitting at the end of the bed. Once again I went still. Fear, confusion and the anticipation of pain rushed back all at once and I felt my body begin to shake. My eyes remained fixed on the man who now looked concerned and worried. He leaned closer to me and I recoiled instinctively.

“Hey, Loki… I’m not going to hurt you I promise. Do you remember me? I’m Tony Stark, or Man of Iron as you called me. Loki?” The Man of Iron… vague memories of a place full of humans, monuments that stretched into the sky and fear so, so much fear. The memories had churned up images of terror, a hooded figure, the darkness of space and a purple man and his horrifying steed. I dimly registered the Man of Iron calling to me and catching my collapsing form as I plunged headlong into spinning darkness.


	10. Chapter 10 - Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the amazing comments! They are incredibly motivational and inspiring :) Keep them coming! Thank you for everyone who is reading this. Here's another chapter for you amazing people!
> 
> Trigger Warning: Minor torture, panic attacks

“God damn it!” I whisper yelled as the terrified God’s body slumped, unconscious. What had I done wrong? Did I move too fast? Was the water a bad move? _Of course the water was a bad move you idiot! What do you think he took that to be!_ As if I didn’t already feel bad enough, my thoughts just jumped straight in on the Tony bashing. 

I had been so startled when I heard Loki’s breathing pick up that I initiated contact without thinking about the potential consequences. _‘Initiated contact’ what is this, some kind of alien movie?_ Well he is an alien I thought back… at myself… proof I am finally going insane. My snide thoughts just wouldn’t shut up. I thought back on my brief interaction with Loki, it was stupid, everything I had done was stupid. Having said that, I have no idea how to deal with a tortured god. Jesus, machines are so much easier to deal with than people, people do not come with instruction manuals. Oh boy would it be easier if they did. 

Loki had not spoken to me, beyond making pained sounding whimpers I was pretty sure he didn’t know he was producing. JARVIS had buzzed my watch when Loki came to but I was too sleepy and bloody freezing to do anything at first. Maybe I should have just left it, he hadn’t seemed to notice my presence before I rudely announced it. I remembered Loki as this powerful god that nearly killed me during the battle of New York, all quick retorts and leather, bloody impossible to sneak up on. Now he didn’t even know I was less than half a room away. What had they done to him?

Maybe introducing myself had not been the best idea, or the water. I was so freaked out that he was conscious I just went on autopilot – get water. Whenever I wake up with a hangover it’s always, ‘get water, it’ll help’. I do this to other people too. Pepper used to get annoyed with me. Whenever she wasn’t feeling great or something was wrong, my automatic reaction was always – get water. So, when I had to deal with a barely conscious, heavily injured and traumatised god, I got water. 

Stupid move, with the extent of his injuries and the sheer length of time they had him he was bound to have been tortured with water at some point. _Or some other liquid, like poison._ My mind helpfully pointed out. Wasn’t there something in Norse Mythology about Loki tied to a rock having poison dripped onto him for eternity? I made a mental note to ask Thor how accurate these legends were before reading up on them. Thinking about this didn’t really help but I refused to let my mind drag me back to Afghanistan, water torture is not something for today methinks. When I first came back I couldn’t even have a shower without having a full blown panic attack, or look at a glass of water without almost having one. Unfortunately I could not avoid water forever and got over the paralytic fear, or most of it. I still won’t go near a swimming pool. 

Looking at it like that it seems stupid in light of what Loki has been through. I was tortured for mere days which all but pales into insignificance in light of Loki’s years upon years of horrific abuse of every kind imaginable. Thor said that Loki had been in captivity on Asgard since New York, that’s at least 5 years, who knows the time difference. Bruce said that his body was showing signs of previous torture and Thor had said Loki was missing for years before he showed up in New York, everyone thinking him dead. Suicide, he must have been in pain even then. I know you are not supposed to compare your experiences and problems to those of others, all issues are valid no matter the severity (or lack of) of the event that caused them, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was being really petty. Loki, if he recovered at all, had years of recuperation ahead of him and he was likely to never get over what had happened to him. 

Before I could change my mind I had arranged for a swimming pool to be installed on the 35th floor of the tower, next to the gym. I would get over this. Heck, it might even be useful for Loki’s recovery. Coming back to myself and the current situation I looked at the thin body of the God. Loki was naked except for the bandages wrapped around most of him. Steeling myself, I arranged his healing limbs in a more comfortable position and covered him with a blanket, for comfort. He looked so small lying in that massive bed. I shook my head and looked away. I could exactly do anything now and I didn’t want to make the situation worse. I left the water on the bedside table, instructed JARVIS to watch Loki and inform me of any changes. I also asked that he summon everyone to the penthouse living room. It was time for another chat. 

I left Loki’s room and was instantly struck by how warm everywhere else was. I was going to have to fork out a ton of money to fund this air con usage, and I couldn’t care less. The others were waiting for me in the living room. I went across to the bar and poured myself a scotch, I had a feeling I was going to need it. Sitting down on the uncomfortable yet fashionable sofa (everyone else had taken the comfy chairs) I looked around. Natasha and Clint were sitting very close together and both looked exhausted. Thor had cleaned up and was minus the armour which he assured me had gone straight to the laundry room. Not that I cared, but it was nice to know. 

Steve would still not look me in the eye. I idly wondered how long it would take him to get over what had happened between us. We were drunk and that was all there was to it. He knew I was bisexual so it was him that I was surprised about, American flag boxers… I didn’t know if I was ever going to get over that particular hilarity. I hoped the time came soon when he was comfortable enough with what had happened that I could tease him about that. Bruce spoke first,

“What is it Tony?” He looked like he would drop any second and I felt vaguely bad about dragging him out of bed. He also looked worried and I realised how this must look to him. I had woken him up with no explanation and said that we had to talk. That sounds ominous in any situation. My sense of time was shot and looking out of the penthouse windows revealed it to be barely dawn – on what day I had no idea, although I was fairly sure that JARVIS would have notified me if I had missed anything drastically important. 

“Loki woke up.” I had no idea how to start so I just blurted it out. Another mistake to add to today’s tally. The effect was instantaneous. Everyone sat bolt upright and I barely had time to process the reaction before both Thor and Bruce all but bolted out the room.

“STOP, he’s not awake anymore! Sit down!” they froze midway to the door so abruptly that it was almost comical. Equally as fast as they had got up they were sitting back down and everyone was talking, firing questions at a mile a minute. 

“SHUT UP!” I yelled in an attempt to stop the chaos. The others quieted slowly. “Thank you, I called you here to tell you what happened and to discuss the situation further.” That sounded rather formal but it seemed to do the trick. When everyone was listening, I went on.

“Loki woke up about half an hour ago, JARVIS buzzed me but I didn’t wake up immediately. Do you have any idea how cold it is in there! Bloody freezing!” at a look from Bruce I continued, “He appeared to be taking stock of his body and surroundings, balling himself up despite the injuries, which appear to have recovered really fast and very well.” Bruce looked relieved to hear this and sat back more comfortably. Thor was still on edge.

“He appeared to be surprised at the appearance of the bandages but was equally confused and fearful of what they may mean. When I saw him moving and spoke for the first time, he startled big time. Which I personally think is not surprising, given the circumstances. However, Natasha will remember better than the rest of us, how hard he was to sneak up on during the fight. Which is just another way to highlight how far he has fallen. He was startled at my voice and appeared even more scared when I sat on the edge of the bed. Another, probably bad idea. He didn’t open his eyes. I think he was unsure of what I was doing because I didn’t hurt him. I got him some water,” cue groans from Clint and Steve who had been on the receiving end of my compulsive water giving several times, “but he didn’t touch it, and looking back on this it was a bad idea. I think he probably assumed it to be some kind of poison or drug, he didn’t even investigate it. I left it there by the way. 

“I tried to speak to him gently… oh just watch the recording.” I gave up trying to tell them what had happened, it was too early for that. The holographic image of Loki’s room flickered into life and everyone watched as everything I had just detailed took place with Bruce wincing at my language and apparent disregard for common sense. When it came to me asking him about his eyes everyone focused minutely on Loki’s every move. At the sound of his name he had flinched and appeared confused, the whole time he was conscious he looked terrified. When he had first woken he appeared to be taking inventory of injuries, old and new, cataloguing what hurt and what he could do, the range of movement he had. It was clearly something he had done before and he was obviously puzzled as to why there were no new injuries. This break in pattern scared him. As did my question about his eyes.

It was not clear whether he took this to be a command or a joke or what but his instant reaction was one of surprise. What happened next was heart-breaking. Seeing it for the second time it was clear what he was doing. His hand darted to his face but froze before it got there. He thought it was a trick. By the look of things he was deliberating whether touching his face was something I wanted him to do or wanted him to think I wanted him to do. He clearly expected punishment for any action. Thor was crying, seeing his once proud brother reduced to this must have been incredibly painful for him. He let out a particularly loud sob, muffled by his hand when his brother attempted to open his eyes. The shock when his eyes were revealed to be bright green was palpable throughout the room. There was no mistaking it, they were supernaturally bright green not blue at all. They then flickered back into that solid unnerving red, but for a second they had definitely been green.  
Loki’s panic at my name was blindingly obvious and I felt awful for inducing that reaction. Thor on the other hand had gone sheet white at this reaction. The video stopped and everyone turned to him. Steve spoke first,

“Thor, hey big guy, you okay?” Thor was almost shaking when he looked at me. 

“This… Loki… he…”his voice broke, he took a deep breath and tried again, “This is not a reaction to your name. He almost didn’t remember you at first, this came after when he tried to remember who you were. It’s not you, it’s the events of when he met you he is terrified of. I mean no offence, but you did not pose such a significant threat to Loki to warrant such terror.”

Surprisingly that was not hard to imagine or take, Loki wasn’t scared of me. Part of me was wondering why and trying to find ways of making the suit scarier, while the majority of my thoughts were focused on the positive side of this, Loki wasn’t scared of ME. I quickly shut that small part of my brain off. 

“Good, that’s… that’s good…” I really didn’t know what to say, so my wonderful brain blurted out the first thing that came to mind, 

“Oh and people are coming to install a pool on Monday.”

Everyone turned and looked at me, like this was the worst possible time to mention pools. Which it kind of was. Suddenly Natasha’s eyes lit up with understanding, as did Clint’s which made me feel oddly exposed and slightly worried. Natasha suddenly spoke before anyone else could,

“Leave it guys, a pool is a good idea and more relevant than you know. We are not talking about this now.” She shut the conversation off there, leaving everyone to look strangely at me and wonder what on earth a pool could mean that Natasha of all people was prepared to back me up on it. Thor had ignored my outburst so I decided to ask more questions. Clint beat me to it.

“Nat and I have been thinking, Thor when you said that Loki was your right hand man in fights, and always had your back. What role did he play exactly?” It was an odd question, but when you took into account that these people were spies it was not that strange.

“Aside from being a formidable fighter, Loki was the best strategist Asgard had ever seen. He could win you a war with an army a quarter of the size of the enemies in conditions that favoured them, all with strategy alone. It was the one thing people admired him for. Why?” Thor looked slightly better when he could praise his brother for something Loki was clearly amazing at. Like the rest of us though, he was confused as to where that question had come from. Natasha spoke this time, fixing her steely gaze on Thor.

“We think Loki lost that battle on purpose. We want to know why.”


	11. Chapter 10 - Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the wait for this chapter, hopefully I will update more regularly now!! School is now over and I'm nearly finished the busiest part of my summer so I should have more time to write! Thank you all for the amazing comments, they really motivate me and keep me writing!! Thank you to everyone who pointed out my mistake about Loki's eyes in the last chapter, I've changed it now!
> 
> Comment, leave Kudos, but most importantly, enjoy!

To be honest, in light of recent conversations I was prepared to bet that I could no longer be surprised. I was categorically wrong. Natasha’s question really put the cat among the metaphorical avengers pigeons and everyone brightened somewhat. Despite of the depressing situation we now had something to focus on, a question to answer, and if there is anything this team likes, it’s answering questions. Well, mostly, depends on the question really… 

“I thought it was obvious that Loki lost the battle on purpose” my brain to mouth filter was clearly broken, stress will do that to a man, even a genius like me. Not to blow my own horn or anything. All eyes turned to me.

Steve spoke first, “Well, he was defiantly not acting as if he were a fantastic strategist, it was all pretty sloppy to be honest. I thought he just had no idea what he was doing.” The others all nodded in agreement, then Clint spoke up. 

“As much as I hate the bastard, Steve’s right. His actions were sloppy at best. I don’t remember much about the invasion, I wasn’t really in charge of me.” He shuddered, “But I do remember Loki struggling a lot, he looked awful all the time. Sometimes he would go into a sort of trance, only to be wrenched out of it looking worse than he had done before. You’ve seen the footage, his eyes were blue.” Clint looked uncomfortable with the admission but he was clearly relinquishing his staunch hatred for the poor man currently lying comatose on the bed in the spare room. 

Natasha looked pensive and once more asked a poignant question. “So why did his eyes turn green now? He very clearly had red eyes later on.”

Thor looked up at this question, clearly directed at him. He was no magic expert by his own admission, but he was the only one who knew anything about it, he had grown up with Loki after all. When he spoke his voice was low and husky, the poor guy was clearly hurting.

“I don’t really know the answer to that question Lady Natasha. The Loki I knew always had green eyes. I asked him once why he never changed his eye colour when he shifted, he said…”

Thor was cut off by Clint. “Shifted?”

“Yes, Loki is a shapeshifter. They are incredibly rare. I suppose this is why he never knew his true heritage. He had shifted from his true form at such a young age that his Aesir form was to his knowledge, his true form. He caused much mischief with this particular skill of his, but in all his transformations he never changed his eye colour, well very rarely, there were one or two occasions when he did, but it was unusual. I asked him about it once and he said that the eyes were the window to the soul, it is incredibly difficult, taxing and advanced magic to change their colour, so he never really bothered. I guess when the Allfather placed his glamour on Loki to further strengthen his Aesir appearance he subdued Loki’s natural eye colour, red, to the next colour which would be easy for Loki to sustain which was in his case, green. I believe the reason his eyes are flickering at the moment is because he is unconsciously trying to revert to his Aesir form but the limited magic he had available was unable to sustain the change and he gave up.” 

So Loki was also a shapeshifter, there seemed to be no end to his magical prowess. That explained my green eyes question. Bruce had been quiet for a long time now, he was clearly itching to check on his patient but was also far too spellbound by Thor’s story to pull himself away. Steve had also been quiet, but he now joined the conversation. 

“While this is fascinating, we still haven’t answered the original question, did Loki loose in Manhattan on purpose or not?” And there was the essay question for the avenger’s application if we ever wrote one. 5000 words on the psychology of a mind controlled god conducting an invasion, thoughts please. I shook my head, in times of stress I always come up with the most ridiculous ideas. 

Poor Thor was taking the brunt of all these questions. I don’t think he had been able to rest for a second since he got here. He had wanted to stay with Loki the night before, but Bruce had prohibited it. Unlike me, Thor had listened to our resident 'not that kind of doctor'. Saying that it was imperative he also rested. He would do Loki no good if he could not stand up. Despite Bruce’s best intentions, it was clear that Thor had not slept a wink since he arrived. He bowed his head in contemplation of this question.

“Loki has ever been troublesome and I have never been good at predicting or understanding his actions or motives but I do not believe Loki would ever do something that was not entirely deliberate. I cannot be certain because it is clear that my brother was suffering incredibly during the invasion and had been coerced. Indeed the blue eyes are a dead giveaway that he was not himself. Unfortunately I cannot answer your question as I have no idea how in control of himself Loki was during the invasion and how much planning he was able to do. I do believe that had the people controlling him had his mind completely, with all his tactical ability, the invasion would have gone very differently and Midgard would belong to Loki. However the lack of use of magic or strategy suggests to me that Loki had planned to lose or at least was actively working against those who were controlling him. The best person to ask about this particular issue would be the archer himself.” 

Clint looked uncomfortable yet resigned as he was dragged unwillingly into the spotlight yet again. He sighed and looked at Natasha who gave his hand a squeeze as he looked back at the rest of us. 

“I don’t really know what to say. I was under Loki’s control, not the control of whoever was calling the shots for him. I was however not treated badly or physically forced into doing anything. He ordered and I obeyed, that was the nature of the control. I think the control over Loki would have to have been less than that if they wanted him to think for himself and strategize, doubtless their intention and reason for wanting Loki specifically. Anyone could lead an invasion if they were controlled, heck I could have done it. They would have had no need to break Loki down so he would do it for them. Their control must not have been so total that he could not make spur of the moment decisions and strategic manoeuvres. They needed him completely compliant under mind control or not, hence the torture.” He paused here, clearly finding it difficult to speak of his time as one of Loki’s minions. An image of Clint in a yellow minion costume flashed across my mind, swiftly dismissed. Natasha once again squeezed his hand and swallowing heavily he continued.

“Loki was a good commander and tactician. I think that he could easily have won that invasion. However I think he was playing those that controlled him. Making it seem like he was doing all he could, invading to the best of his abilities. Abilities he portrayed as heavily affected by the extreme mental torture he had gone under. They would have suspected nothing of a few sloppy manoeuvres, small mistakes. He could have passed it off as residual pain or not knowing the planet. I think he played us all. He gave Selvig an out, allowing Natasha to close the portal. He got Thor here, put us all in New York, not a strategically very significant location and barely used magic. I think he designed it so that we would win. I think he would have done anything to escape that control. I know I would have done.”

Clint’s grim speech once again lowered the mood. At least finally we were beginning to understand why Loki lost. All this talk of Loki really not being as bad as he seemed was not helping my guilt at letting him go to a place he was going to be tortured further for trying to do the right thing. 

“I suppose he made us all hate him so that we would want to send him back with Thor. He didn’t want to go, but I think he thought staying would be worse, after all the person who controlled him has to be pretty powerful and would probably want him back to get revenge for his failed invasion. Earth has crap defences for that kind of thing. Asgard on the other hand, has been fighting interstellar wars for millennia, and winning. He was going to take his chances there.” I added. The others all looked thoughtful.   
“Jesus, if he did all that… Wow we really fell for his play.” Steve sounded in equal parts impressed and guilty. Thor gave a wry smile,

“That’s Loki for you, you never knew you’d been played until you had done exactly what he wanted you to do. Even then, his scheme was often so impressive you couldn’t be angry without also being just a tiny bit impressed. So many people hated him for that.”  
“Poor guy… and now he’s fighting for his life” Bruce looked like someone had ripped out his heart and trodden on it. 

“Oh make no mistake, Loki was devious and incredibly difficult to live with. He was a bit of an, oh how do you say it… arse? He was not a particularly nice person, but he was funny and sarcastic and…” Thor faded out, his voice shaking, then he spoke softly, “…he was my little brother”. His voice broke and his great shoulders shook with silent sobs. My heart broke for him right there. Whatever Loki had done, he was still Thor’s little brother and Thor just wanted him to be safe and happy. Bruce had tears in his eyes, Steve was crying. Everyone was moved by the sheer emotion in the room. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, it came away wet. I was also crying. 

“We will fix this. We will fix Loki” The determination in my broken voice was echoed in the faces of my team mates. They were my family in all but name and I would do anything for them. Now we all had a job to do and I would not fail. Not this time.


	12. Chapter 11 - Loki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and the Kudos! Keep em coming, they are author food :)

I was tired, so tired. The barren wastelands of the Chitauri home world stretched out in front of me. I was hot, there was no atmosphere on this rock, nothing to protect my vulnerable form from the brutal radiation of a thousand suns. He would leave me here, strung up on a rock in this blistering heat for hours, retrieving me on the brink of death. He would then plunge my wretched form into ice cold water and the relief was so immediate that had I any moisture left in my body I would have wept. The relief was short lived, it always was. Just enough of a reprieve to give me hope before my salvation turned into yet another form of pain. He liked to drown me, suffocate me under the water until my body was still before brutally wrenching me back to life. There was nothing I could do, no way of escape, I was condemned to this excruciating existence until I breathed no more. One day he would go too far, one day. I was sure of it. 

He never did.

The image in front of me dissolved into mist, slowly losing the harsh lines that characterised that landscape. The image softened and faded before refocusing into the bright shining lines and grand splendour that was the throne room of Asgard. Fear raced through my veins, an injection of cold that was for once not welcome. I was standing in the centre of the throne room looking at the man who occupied the great golden throne before me and held the attention of an entire planet. The Allfather looked upon me with a face so hard it could cut diamond. His eyes seemed to pierce right through me, seeing everything. I was bare in front of the man I had once called my father. This was the man that raised me, that held me when I broke my leg for the first time falling off a horse. He only held me that way once, I was very young but the memory was a clear as if it had occurred yesterday. It was the only time he ever held me like that. 

This was the man that exiled Thor, his golden son, who was known for being ruthless, who kept secrets and who should never be trusted. If I thought I was to ever be allowed to speak for myself I was wrong. My trial was short lived, I spoke but a handful of times. The pure relief I felt at being away from Him from having my own mind had briefly granted me a euphoria I was sure to never feel again. I was home. Admittedly I hated the vast majority of the people on Asgard but I had grown up there and a fondness for the place and its people (a very select few) still lingered amidst the betrayal and pain. My mother stood there and I longed to rush to her but the heavy restraint of the chains holding me back reminded me of who I was and what they believed I had become. In their eyes I was a monster. When I saw Odin’s eyes I knew it was over. 

Looking around the throne room as I waked to the dais, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I cut all ties with my mother, a rare moment of clarity that enabled me to hopefully spare her the pain my punishment would surely bring. The reprieve from control and torture had been lovely but it was sure to not last long. I was clear headed enough to see that. My communication with the Allfather was brief and littered with stupid mistakes. The old me could have talked his way out of this, deep down I knew that even back then I would never have been able to stop this. But I was tired and so, so desperate for the end to all this. I had hoped for execution, but that was far too merciful for an abomination such as myself. When my former father sentenced me to living out my days in the dungeons I prayed for the first time. We are gods, we never pray. But pray I did, I begged whoever was listening to grant me a swift death. Anything, I cared not how painful, as long as I did not have to suffer for years more. 

As always, my prayer was ignored. 

More images flashed through my mind. The look on the first man’s face who came to torture me. The first time Odin himself came down. The moment my sight was taken from me and my lips sewn shut. The pain. Oh the pain was excruciating, it tainted every moment, every breath. I could not move, nor breathe nor feel my heart beat without it bringing some semblance of pain. My pride, already shattered by Him, was forcibly ripped from my every sinew. I would have done anything, I did do many horrific and depraved things when they promised me a swift death. They never kept their promise and I was in the dungeons for a very short period of time before I instated rule number 1. Never hope. I broke that rule so many times at the beginning it was unbelievable, time became meaningless, my body was a tool, one to give them pleasure of all kinds, and one to inflict pain on me. My very essence was turned against me.

I remembered the collar. How very proud I had been to make it all those centuries ago, showing it to the Allfather and my Mother with the greatest excitement. I had finally made something they deemed of use. Naturally, as a mage I was terrified of my invention, but my father had actually seen me, had actually asked me to make it. Had it been anyone else I would have refused. When I gave it to him he had looked so pleased, though his eyes glinted dangerously when he looked at me. My mother was concerned but I had no eyes for her, not on that day when my father had finally acknowledged my craft. I never dreamed it would be used on me. 

Image after image, memory after memory flashed across my brain. I lost myself in a tide of pain and anguish. Then stronger than the rest, a searing pain and the colour green. My magic, surrounding me, flowing through me, hurting me. The image of a room, bright light, a bed, curtains, cold, it all came to me. The dreadful pain of waiting. I remembered the man at the foot of my bed, the pain of bones healing, the agony as my collar was removed and for the first time in what seemed like forever I broke rule number 1 and dared to hope.


	13. Chapter 12 - Tony

The next few days passed swiftly. Natasha and Clint were called away by Fury to do something in Egypt. I asked, it was classified. I could have found out but I couldn’t be bothered. Briefly I allowed myself to wonder when I had started to not care about what was happening in the outside world. I dismissed that question. 

Loki hadn’t woken up again. Bruce had been changing his bandages and setting new breaks… he was still finding them. It appeared that there had been no bone in Loki’s body left intact by the wondrous guards of Asgard or whoever had him before…

Loki was still glowing slightly green and as it was when he arrived, Bruce could no longer get needles or stitches through his flesh. Neither of us were sure if this was a good or bad thing. After consultation with and examination of Thor we decided it was best to not inject Loki with any further sedatives or pain relief much as I wanted to. God knows how much pain he could have been in. Thor thought that without a soul forge (whatever that was) we would not be able to see what the magic was doing inside Loki’s body. It would therefore be unwise to add any other ‘substances’ (as Thor called them) into his system. Experimenting on Thor was fun though… all in the name of science you understand.

Some of the wounds on the god’s body were healing slowly, none of the major ones, but they weren’t bleeding anymore which was always a good sign. Bruce kept all of his injuries clean and the room as sterilised as possible. He was worried that viruses or bacteria ‘alien’ to Loki’s body could hinder his recovery. I pointed out that Thor had been here a lot longer and was not ill. He wasn’t amused. 

Thor wasn’t sleeping, he looked like a walking zombie. I told him, Steve told him and Bruce told him that he needed to rest. He only took our advice when he collapsed in the elevator. To be frank, none of us looked good. I spent most of my time in my workshop but slept in Loki’s room. It was seriously cold in there so my sleep was rubbish but Loki looked comfortable lying there so I was not going to protest. Nobody but myself was telling me to be there. Thor joined me sometimes and we shivered on the sofa together. We never talked in that room. I don’t really know why. It seemed almost criminal to disturb the fragile peace that was for the first time in years allowing Loki to rest. Nobody knew whether or not he was actually resting but suffice to say he looked peaceful. 

This strange pattern of coexistence went on for eight days. On the evening of the ninth day I was wrapped up in about a million blankets in Antarctica (it’s what we had named the spare bedroom where Loki was sleeping because it was so absurdly cold in there) trying in vain to go to sleep when a scream so full of pain and fear sent me rocketing out of my duvet nest. 

“JARVIS get Bruce and Thor NOW” I raced across to the bed. Loki’s entire body was rigid as a board. His wasted muscles were pulled taught over bones so sharp I thought they would break through his skin. 

“Fuck”

The screaming continued. It seemed like his agony was being transmitted directly to my soul. It was terrifying and painful and something I was 100% sure humans were never supposed to experience. It was only once the others arrived that I realised Loki was still asleep and his mouth was closed. Thor looked like he was about to pass out. Having said that he always looked like he was about the pass out recently. It was starting to become a permanent thing about him. Cap wears American flag boxers, Clint hides in ventilation shafts and Thor looks like he’s going to pass out. How my mind managed to get distracted despite the piercing shriek that filled the room was proof of either my genius or my insanity – take your pick.

Loki looked as if he was having a fit. The green light emanating from the far too numerous wounds all over him was getting brighter. From the expression on Thor’s face I presumed this was not a good thing – he’d gone sheet white. Bruce arrived seconds later looking haggard and exhausted. When he looked at Loki his face went hard, he’d gone into ‘doctor’ mode. 

“Thor, what is happening?” Bruce spat the words out like bullets – far more a command than a question. The soldier in Thor sat up and took notice. 

“… I don’t know” the words were spoken slowly. Clearly the solider in Thor was an idiot. Bruce didn’t need to say anything else, he just looked at Thor in a way that combined desperation and a need for any answer at all with strict authority. I didn’t like that look. Thor started talking.

“It looks like his magic…” he faded off before one glance at Bruce’s face started him going again, “It looks like he’s lost the fight, his magic is overwhelming him…”

All expression left my face as the terrible screaming continued. 

“Um, Thor? Are you hearing this too?” Thor’s head snapped round as the screaming seemed to increase in volume.

“Hearing what? Man of Iron, there is nothing to hear ” Oh shit.

“First its Tony – we’ve been through this. Second, somebody – probably him,” I pointed to Loki who was barely visible through the green light he was giving off, “is screaming. It’s honestly terrifying and the fact that you can’t hear it makes it considerably worse.” Thor slipped into ‘battle mode’ at this news, his face going blank. 

“He’s projecting.”

“He’s what?” Bruce piped up.

“Projecting” 

“Yes you said, now what is projecting. This is honestly terrifying.” It hurt too. The shriek didn’t change in pitch – it was already damn loud – but the longer I stood there the more desperate it became. Thor looked scared but oddly resigned. He gazed at Loki and I swear I’ve never seen someone so sad or desperate. 

“He’s projecting.” He took a deep breath, “It’s been known to happen when an extremely powerful mage is in a time of great distress. Their magic reaches out to the people it thinks can help them.” His voice faded out and then returned in what was barely a whisper. So people Loki's magic thinks can help him includes me. Well what d'ya know, my day can get weirder. 

“He’s dying”

“Not on my watch” Bruce growled out as he snapped into action, checking Loki’s vitals and taking readings of the light emanating from the wounds covering him. Thor stepped in again and gently placed a hand on Bruce’s arm.

“Banner, there is nothing you can do.” Thor was crying and I was suddenly and painfully reminded that the emaciated creature in front of me was in fact, Thor’s baby brother. 

“I have to get him out of here, somewhere where he can’t hurt anyone.” We both stopped and stared at Thor.

“Hurt anyone? He hasn’t moved for days Thor.” Bruce was trying to be gentle but Loki was dying right in front of him and he was trying to stop him. 

“I forget how little you know of magic… When a mage dies in great pain the magic contained in their body bursts out in something akin to an explosion but much, much more powerful. A mage as powerful as Loki could level the entire city of New York and a great deal of the surrounding area. If he dies he’ll take everyone with him. We had contingency plans for this on Asgard – Loki designed them himself. I don’t think they’ll work now… he’s too weak.” Thor’s voice was broken. It was hard seeing someone so physically big be made so small under the weight of his grief. 

Suddenly the screaming rose in pitch and my legs buckled. Bruce barely caught me before I hit the floor. The scream was intelligible but it was almost like Loki was trying desperately to say something. My vision wavered. The pain was excruciating, the shriek filling my whole mind. Suddenly Thor and Bruce hit the floor. Falling like puppets whose strings had been cut. Then the scream solidified into words.

“Ekki sjά sinn!”

My head rang in the silence. The sudden absence of noise or pain threw me. The others looked similarly shocked. All heads turned towards the bed where Loki lay. 

The green light was gone. 

In a mad scramble of limbs we all got to our feet and rushed to the bed. Loki was still but he was breathing. He looked… normal. Well blue and alienish but he wasn’t glowing anymore which was good. At least I thought it was good. Nothing had exploded and New York was still here so unless this was a very detailed afterlife, everything was still intact and we were still alive. So was Loki. Probably. 

Thor was looking better than he had before, his whole countenance was just oozing relief. He was staring at Loki like he was his whole world. Once again I was abruptly reminded that Loki was Thor’s younger brother. 

“What did he say?” ever pragmatic Bruce was already checking Loki over and asking all the important questions. My mind was still ringing from the unearthly scream but I had been wondering the same thing. Thor looked up at me from where he had been kneeling at Loki’s side. 

“Not this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for having not updated in a while. No excuse other than procrastinating! :P Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave Kudos and comment, writer food those are! Thank you for reading :)


	14. Chapter 13 - Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry for being on hiatus for forever! I have zero excuses... writers block? Thank you to anyone who has stuck around long enough to read this - very much appreciated! I now know where the story is going and will be posting on a semi regular update schedule - I promise I will not leave it another year. This fic is not abandoned!! Enjoy the latest instalment of the madness :)

The room was silent for a long time, everyone holding their breath. It felt like hours before Bruce stepped away from Loki’s prone form.

“He appears to be okay… I will not even pretend to understand how or why but all his injuries appear to be healing at an incredibly accelerated pace. He is still incredibly malnourished, and god knows what his mental state is going to be like, but I think… I think he’s going to be okay.”

Thor had stood when Bruce approached me but on hearing his brother was going to recover (to what extent as yet unknown) he collapsed again. Bruce and I made a tactful retreat from Antarctica to give Thor and Loki some space. I barely made it out if the room before I burst.

“What the fuck was that?!”

“I told you what I know already Tony” Bruce sounded exhausted and while a tiny part of me felt pity for his fatigue the vast majority just wanted answers.

“What you told me was that Loki, who by the way still looks like death, is probably going to be okay. What the hell am I supposed to take from that! He’s been here weeks Bruce, weeks! Now suddenly, he’s going to be okay! He’s emaciated and probably so mentally damaged the collective issues of this whole fucking city will look like a box of chocolates!” I was practically screaming at him. Bruce did nothing but look at me, the resigned look in his eyes said it all. He didn’t know what was going to happen next. Nobody did.

We stood in the hallway just staring at each other, the aura of confusion and desperation was palpable. I was opening my mouth to apologise when an earth shattering scream split the air and Thor came barrelling out of Loki’s room straight into Bruce. The screaming shut off as abruptly as it had started. Thor stood there, looking at the door, heart wrenching anguish written across his face.

“I think someone else should talk to him. He’s…” he broke off and took a deep breath, “He’s scared of me. Tony out of the three of us you are the only one who has not gravely injured him in the past. I think it should be you.” The admission was clearly painful and the distinct green look that passed across Bruce’s face had me wondering how many of Loki’s ridiculous number of injuries had been caused by the Hulk.

I shook myself, very much not convinced that I should be the one to face the very mentally damaged master sorcerer. Me, the one who as Steve so kindly put it ‘just a man in a suit’.  Bruce had put his arm around Thor and was leading the huge man into the common area. As they left Bruce turned and gave me a look that clearly said, ‘don’t be stupid’.

Then I was alone.

The door to Loki’s room was ajar from where Thor had run out earlier, the cold seeping out into the corridor and making me shiver.

“Okay… here goes” I steeled myself, did up my jacket even higher and went inside.

If possible, the room had become even colder. Before we were chilling the room because Loki was running an incredibly high fever of about room temperature which Thor assured us was very unusual and definitely a problem. Now the room truly was freezing, the windows were covered in frost and the very air seemed designed to paralyse you where you stood. If the room hadn’t lived up to its name beforehand it sure did now.

It took me a while to locate Loki himself. He had hidden himself in the corner of the giant bed, curled up and shaking. Ice was spread across the floor making the journey across the floor perilous – the last thing I wanted to do was scare him into making a move. At last I reached the edge of the bed. The covers were frozen solid and Loki himself looked every inch the ice sculpture. As I grew closer the shaking stopped. Loki raised his head but kept his eyes firmly fixed on the bedspread. He slowly uncurled putting his emaciated form on full display. He looked bad, really bad. Clothed in nothing but boxer shorts he looked awful. Bones were jutting out all over the place, he looked like a classroom skeleton that someone had stretched blue fabric over. He was heavily scared and covered in markings which I assumed to be part of being a Jotun.

When I finally looked at his face his cheekbones were so sharp they looked like they were breaking out of his skin. His horns loomed over his head causing him to bow his neck under the strain. Even looking like death, he still managed to seem ethereal. His eyes were downcast and dull, resigned.

“You don’t look so good” genius Tony, fucking genius. Loki tensed at the sound of my voice but remained passive.

“How do you feel reindeer games? You really scared us back there.” Still no reaction, “You going to say something?” at this he froze, the shaking had started again – he appeared to be attempting to vibrate out of his skin.

“I apologise Master” The voice was there, faint and ruined but there. The relief was brief but powerful, then the true implications of what he had said sunk in.

“What!” a little too loud, Loki recoiled as if struck but almost immediately resumed his previous position on his knees, “Please don’t call me that! I am not your master! Loki you’re safe now. I’m not going to hurt you.” My voice was pleading, desperately willing him to understand. He went completely still but did not relax his subservient posture. It was at that moment I finally realised that whatever those fuckers had done to him, whatever had happened, he was truly broken. Watching him sit there waiting for the proverbial axe to fall was physically painful. It was at that point my resolve strengthened immeasurably. I, who had ruined so many things in my comparatively short life, was going to fix this man.

I slowly lowered myself onto the bed, sitting facing him. His posture did not relax in the slightest, nor did he tense again. I took this as a good sign. I had no idea what had happened to him. Torture I knew, and Loki had clearly experienced it in a way that made my ordeal look like a splash in the ocean. I did not know magic. For all I knew they could have, and probably did, use illusions to make him believe it was all over before beginning all over again. Hope was dangerous.

So, I did what I do best – talk. I sat there in the freezing cold and just talked. I talked about my suit, the avengers, what happened last movie night. Everything and nothing, trying desperately to seem as normal and non-threatening as possible. I must have been there for hours babbling about the inane and random goings on in my life. I was in the middle of complaining about how much I hate paperwork and how uncomfortable all office chairs seem to be when I saw it. Loki relaxed. It was infinitesimal, a movement so small that I almost missed it. I smiled internally and babbled on.

The sun went down, and I was still talking. My voice was horse and Id long since lost all feeling in my hands and feet, but I talked on. Eventually Loki relaxed almost completely. After a while his eyes had lifted from staring resolutely at the bedsheets and started staring at me instead. Never direct eye contact – he was just watching. Waiting to see what I would do. Once he’d realised that all I was going to do was talk he retreated back into the corner of the bed and curled up, never taking his disconcertingly bright red eyes off me. When my voice finally completely died I looked over at Loki. He’d actually fallen asleep. Feeling inexplicably proud of my ability to send a god to sleep through talking at them I began the arduous process of getting up. I literally had to break a thin layer of ice covering me in order to move and that wasn’t even the hard bit. Once free of ice I tried to stretch out my legs and experienced the worst cramp of my whole life. Somehow, I staggered across the room towards the door. Every limb was numb, the ones that weren’t were coming back to life with excruciating pins and needles that made me want to never move again. When I finally reached the warmth of the corridor I collapsed and let the pain wash over me, content that I had not fucked up.

This pattern continued for two months, I or sometimes Steve, would go and sit with Loki and just talk or read. He was slowly becoming more comfortable with our presence; finally, having come to a wary sort of acceptance that we were not going to hurt him. He had not made another sound in all that time. I took to reading to him, anything from scientific papers to crime and thriller novels. Steve read him the classics and butchered Shakespeare. We had finished the entire Harry Potter series and were moving on to Narnia when he spoke again.

“Am I dreaming?”


End file.
